The Promises of the Star Crossed Lovers
by brittanymarie97
Summary: Peeta and Katniss simply can't, and won't, live without each other, and would do anything to protect each other. Their still in the Game, and they're in it to win it, together.
1. Chapter 1

It's dark. I can not see anything, but I can feel Peeta's arms wrapped around me. It's a very comforting feeling considering I had another nightmare about loosing him. We were in the games again, and this time, Finnick didn't kiss him. It was absolutely horrible, but then Peeta came and wrapped his stong and comforting arms around me, and I was happy again because I knew it wasn't real. It was only a dream.

"I can't see you," I say softly. I wish I could see him, the love in his eyes that I know is there.

"I can see you though. Have anymore nightmares?" He asks with the sweetness he always has in his voice.

"No. It was just because you weren't here with me. I missed you, and I guess I fell asleep and had a nightmare because when you didn't come back, I thought you died, and I was scared."

"You don't have to worry about me, all those years of throwing the flour around the bakery have given me a good handle on things. I think I can handle what comes at me, especially if I have a rock or something to throw at whatever wants to eat me." He says jokingly, stroking my forehead.

"I guess your right. You are strong, but your not always going to have a rock. What happens if your out, and there's no rocks, and there's nothing to throw for miles? What are you going to do? Run? You can't run that fast because of your leg. Talk them into not hurting you? That only really works on humans, and not all humans. What are you going to do when that happens Peeta?" I'm getting frustrated now. He's listening, but I don't think he has any idea how serious I am.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to see what happens," He tells me.

"No. I already know what's going to happen, your going to get killed, and I won't have the boy with the bread anymore. I'm serious Peeta! You can't walk around without some sort of weapon. It's not like sacks of flour are just going to fall from the sky! I want you to take at least a knife, if not one of my bows with you whenever you go out. I'm not loosing the boy with the bread. I just can't have that." I say solemnly.

"Okay. I guess I'll take a knife with me then. You should calm down, your starting to shake," he coos while stroking my face again.

I have no idea why, but this gesture is more comforting than usual, maybe it's just my state of mind right now. Anger. That is what I'm feeling. Anger at Peeta for not bringing a weapon, and for not having a plan on what he's going to do if he's attacked without a weapon. Hope for the best. What the hell is he thinking? You can't just hope for the best when your cornered or up a tree because someone or something is chasing you!

"You tensed up again. There has to be something more to this. Tell me, it's not like I'm going to run off and tell the whole world your secrets. You know you can trust me. What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?

"I guess I've just been thinking a lot about loosing the people I love. I've lost so many people within the last few years, and it's absolutely crazy. I mean, I've lost Prim, Finnick, Rue, just so many people that meant so much to me. I wouldn't be able to handle loosing you. It would literally send me into like a catatonic state. That's why I get so angry when you have no way to defend yourself! What the hell am I suposed to do if you die? I don't think I could go on living. I... I just can't even..."

"Shhhh... Calm down. I swear, I'll have some sort of a weapon everytime I leave. Just please. Calm down. Your shaking so bad. I don't like to see you like this. It makes me worried because you get so angry, so easy. If you learn to not get so angry, I might not be as worried as I am."

"Why are you worried about me? You should be worried about yourself, Peeta! I can handle myself. I always have my bow and a knife. I can hunt, so I know how to take things down. Just for you, I'll try to calm down, okay? Are you happy now?" I question him, hoping he says yes.

"Very," he coos, with genuine sincerity in his voice. "Katniss... Just promise me one thing," he says, all the sincerity gone. I don't like this tone of voice. This is not his normally voice. He sounds way to serious for himself. This cannot end well.

"What is it?"

"Promise me that if I die, you'll keep living your life the way you are now. Happy and not the sad, dreary life you had before me and the games. Always be happy, for me, no matter what happens. Even if I die, and you think your life is going down hill, just look at the bright side of things even if you don't think there is one. Think positively. Look me in the eyes, and promise me this," he says, with a very serious look in his eyes.

I wish I could promise this to him, but life without Peeta... I don't think I would be able to bear all the pain and sorrow I would feel. I would more than likely die from a broken heart. I don't think I can promise him that.

I can feel the tears start to well up in my eyes. I don't want to cry, but the tears start steaming down my face, stopping and dripping off onto my shirt.

"Why are you crying?"

"I... I just can't picture life without you," I tell him, the tears still streaming down my cheeks.

"Don't then. Just promise me you'll be happy. That's all I'm asking," he tells me sweetly, caressing my hair and wiping the tears off of my cheeks.

"I promise."

**So this is my first fanfic ever, and I hope you like it. Criticism is very welcome considering I've never done this before :)**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
>I just made a very serious promise to Peeta, and I don't think I can keep that promise. Life without Peeta would be impossible. As soon as he's gone, BANG! I will die of shock and pure misery. This sounds like an old ghastly drama we had to read when I actually went to school...<br>"Katniss, I love you. All I want is for you to be happy," Peeta sweetly whispers into my ear while moving my hair out of my eyes.  
>"I know you love me, and I love you to! I'm happy right here, and right now. All I want is for life to stay exactly like this. No changes. This is the most peaceful I've felt in a very long time. This moment just feels right," as I tell him this, his body instantly relaxes, and I can feel all the tension leave both of us, like a huge weight was lifted off both of our shoulders. This moment feels so right, and absolutely perfect.<br>I shift my weight to get a better look at Peeta. He's literally glowing because of how happy his is. With me, and with everything.  
>"I need to get out of this house," I tell him. "I know what we can do!I can teach you how to hunt! I promise it'll be so much fun. It may not be easy at first, but it'll be totally worth it in the end! We can do something fun, together."<br>"You know that sounds absolutely great, but I thought I make to much noise walking with my leg an all. Maybe you should just go by yourself. It'll be easier. I won't scare any of the game away. I'm not much help at this kind of stuff. You know that Katniss! Don't be silly."  
>"I'm not being silly! I think you can do it, and plus, its not as fun when you hunt by yourself. You may make a lot of noise, but we can work on that, and plus, all the game around here is used to people, so you won't scare them as easily. I am not going by myself. Hang on, I'll go get you a bow."<br>I get up, and jog over to my closet where I keep all of my hunting gear. I grab my bow and a quiver of arrows for me, and one for Peeta. I also make sure I grab my game bag, and my Dad's leather jacket that I always wear while hunting. Peeta's watching me carefully. Studying my every move, not that what I'm doing is very important. I walk back over to the couch and hand Peeta his bow and the quiver of arrows. He gingerly grabs them like they're going to attack him, and he studies everything about them as well, like he was doing to me earlier.  
>"Is there something wrong with them?" I question him.<br>"No, it's just that I'm not used this. The feeling that I have a lethal weapon in my hand. That I have to kill a harmless animal. It's crazy. I don't know if I can do this Katniss."  
>"You'll be fine! I promise. It's not as bad as it seems. It's also a lot easier once you get used to the feeling. As soon as you kill something, there's a huge adrenaline rush, and it feels amazing. There's nothing like the feeling of getting your first kill."<br>He looks over the bow, turning it over in his hands, stroking it with the grain of the wood. "I guess your right. I mean, how bad can it be? I'm just worried I'll shoot you in the foot, or I'll even shoot myself. That would not be good. But, I trust you, so I guess I'll go with you. I'm not saying that I'll be able to kill anything, but I'll at least go with you," he tells me, with an unreassuring tone to his voice.  
>"Good. It'll be so much fun! If you shoot me, we can always go see my mother, and she'll fix me, or you, up in a heartbeat. We'll be fine! I swear, as long as your with me, everything will turn out absolutely fine. I have this under control."<br>I grab Peeta's hand, and literally drag him out the door and down the stairs onto the soft, freshly cut green grass. We both breathe in the smells, taking in our surroundings, hearing all the birds singing, and the wind softly moving the trees branches. There was a soft meow from our feet, and we look down to see Buttercup, with a dead mole, all bloody and fresh.  
>We walk around Buttercup, now hissing because we're ignoring him, and head to the woods.<p>

Once we set foot into the woods, it's like we're in a completely different world. It's like the world has come alive with little creatures just waiting for me and Peeta to kill. There's birds in every tree, chipmunks scurry along in front of us, not even caring that we're preparing our bows. Once we get our bows ready, a full grown buck steps out from behind a huge oak tree.  
>"Do you see that buck? I haven't seen a deer in so long, especially one so big! I think the last deer I saw was before our first games. Shh... Try to walk as quietly as possible. It seems like it's used to people, but I'm not sure," I whisper as I tiptoe silently towards the tree.<br>Peeta's follwoing close behind, as we semi-silently stalk our prey. "The deer doesn't suspect a thing. We're so close. Get ready. On my mark, aim for the heart. It's the weakest point. I'll go for a shot through the eye like I always do. It'll be easier to take down with both of us working together as one. On my mark. Three... Two... One... Shoot!"  
>We both let go of our arrows, and mine goes right through the eye as planned, but Peeta's doesn't hit the deer at all. In fact, it hits the ground three feet in front of him. The deer falls to the ground, but it's not dead. I tell Peeta to follow me, and we walk over to the deer, flailing around on the ground in pain.<br>"Are you going to kill it the rest of the way? It looks like its in pain," Peeta says quietly.  
>"I actually was thinking you could finish it off, considering you didn't get an arrow through it. It's easy. Here, take this knife and slit it's neck. It won't be suffering anymore if you do it."<br>Peeta grabs the knife, turns it over in his hands, kneels down next to the deer, and slices its throat. Blood starts to trickle from the cut, and the deer's eyes go blank, and it stops thrashing. Peeta takes the arrow out of it's eye, cleans it off with his shirt, and puts it back in my quiver. He stands next to me, grabs my hands, and squeezes it.  
>"That felt amazing! I've never felt so alive. It's amazing what one little kill can do for the spirits. Okay, so what do we do with it now?" Peeta seems so excited, but seriously lost on what to do with the deer now that we've killed it.<br>"See, I knew you would like the feeling! Okay, well we have to drag it back to the market, and sell it to someone, or we can keep it, and skin it and then eat it for ourselves. I think we should sell it though. We have enough deer to last us awhile. Or, we could be generous, and give it to someone. Maybe Greasey Sae to put in her soup. That would make her so happy since she hasn't had deer in ages," I tell Peeta. He seems to like my last idea the best, because his face lights up at the mention of Greasey Sae.  
>"I think we should give it to Greasey Sae, we have enough money to last us for awhile, and we have enough food to last us. She could always use fresh meat anyways," he tells me while picking up the deer and resting it around his strong shoulders. We start to head towards the meadow, and Peeta grabs my hand again. We continue to the edge of the forest, and right at the edge, he stops dead in his tracks.<br>"What is it Peeta?"  
>"Shh! Look to your left. That's a wolf. I saw it in one of my Dad's old books. They're carnivores, and they will attack us, and they have very hard bite pressure. I'm going to put the deer down, and we need to start to back away very slowly. Go back into the woods. It'll hopefully go for the deer, and not us. Once we're in the woods, we can go around and find another way out. But that all depends on if it goes for the deer. If it doesn't, run, as fast as you can, and climb a tree. I have your knife, and your bow, and I might be able to hold my own, but you can make it. Okay. I'll put it down now, and we back away slowly, and remember, no matter what happens, I love you." he tells me with an urgent and trembling voice. I can tell he's scared. His hands are shaking, and I can feel all the tension he can feel.<br>"I love you to," I tell him as he sets the deer down, and we slowly start to back away. The wolf looks us, but it sees the deer instead, and goes straight to it. We keep backing up, but the wolf can sense our nervousness it seems, and it starts to watch us. "It's watching us. I can see the eyes following our every move. I don't have a good feeling about this," I say nervously eyeing the wolf.  
>"I know. Okay, so what we should do is keep backing up, and once we get close enough to a tree, and far enough from it, we can climb it, and then shoot it with our arrows."<br>We keep backing up, getting closer and closer to a tree, and farther and farther from the deer and the wolf. We get close enough to a tree, and he signals to me by squeezing my hand extra hard. As soon as he does this, we look at eachother, and we sprint to the tree, and climb it maybe 15 feet or so. We both immeadiately grab our bows, and we take aim, breathing in deeply. We take in one deep breath together, and realease our arrows as one. Even though Peeta's arrow didn't hit the deer, he hit the wolf spot on, right next to where mine hit. Right in the heart. Both arrows. The wolf instantly died.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Peeta and I drop down from the tree we're hiding out in, and stalk over to the dead wolf, not sure if it had actually died or not. Looks can be decieving. As soon as we confirmed that it actually was dead, Peeta grabs me, and embraces me in a loving and happy hug. I hug him back, and we look into eachother's eyes. Then, all of a sudden, he kisses me, and his lips are wet and warm. A comfortable feeling overwhelmes me. He pulls away, a huge smile on his face because he was so happy we were alive and not a meal for a hungry wolf.

"That was absolutely amazing! Holy crap! I thought we were in for it, you know? It was eyeing us, and watching our every move, so I thought we were done for. Oh my goodness. I can't breathe. Do you have an adrenaline rush to? I have a huge one right now! So, now that's over, how about we grab this, and see what's left of the deer? Greasy Sae might be able to salvage a little of it, and this wolf's pelt has to be worth a fortune! I don't think I've ever even heard of someone killing a wolf before... We must've just made history!" Peeta was basically yelling everything from how excited he was. I was excited to, but I wasn't about to start yelling to attract more preditors that I've never even heard of, none the less seen!

"Sounds good, but I don't think you should yell so loud! You'll attract more preditors. I don't want that. I don't know if I can keep my head through another stand-off with another one. Let's get going, the woods is starting to make me uncomfortable," I tell Peeta as I grab the wolf as he's going to grab what's left-over from the deer.

The wolf isn't that heavy. I easily threw it over my shoulders, and truged over to Peeta where he's picking up what's left of the deer we had killed earlier. There isn't much left though, a little salvageable meat, but its mainly entrails and skin. There's blood everywhere, much more than when we had first killed the deer. It's more than I'm used to seeing. I normally kill small things, and they never get eaten by a predator.

"Okay, let's get out of here and get to Greasy Sae before it gets too dark out. I hate being anywhere near the woods when it's dark," I urgently tell Peeta. I'm getting worried, because the sun is setting, and as soon as it sets, the woods supposedly instantly becomes alive with predators, stalking around to find a meal. I don't think they would hesitate at going for me and Peeta.

We walk out of the woods, the deer over his shoulders, and the wolf over mine, hand in hand. "This was actually fun! You completely came through with your promise. I hope you realize how happy I am," Peeta says softly, because he knows how worried I am about any predators coming and attacking us.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself! We do have to work on your shooting skills though... That shot at the deer was absolutely atrocious! I swear though, after a while you'll get better. It took me years to get as good as I am now. I think we can make you pretty damn good though. You have a lot of potential," I tell Peeta as we get close to Greasy Sae's.

As we walk in the door to where Greasy Sae's, there's a lot more customers than usual, so we walk right into the back, where we know she'll be, but she's not there.

"Well... This is odd. What do we do with this deer now? Do we just leave it here? Maybe we could put a note on it that says its from us," Peeta says warily, because he knows Greasy Sae is always either back here, or out front. I can tell he's troubled by this because he furrows his brow, and his eyes narrow.

"I guess we can leave a note on it... Hopefully someone doesn't take it. That would be horrible! I hope she's okay. It's not good that she isn't here. Something must be wrong. I'm not getting a good feeling..." I say as we leave a note on what's left of the deer and leave.

We walk out hand in hand, and start to walk back to the Victor's Village. We turn the corner to the road we live on, and all we can see is fire. Haymitch's house is on fire. Blazing hot and bright red. The whole village is here with buckets of water, chucking them into the flames. Peeta and I slowly walk towards the inferno of fire, everyone making a path for us to get to the house. We get to where we can barely stand the heat, and we find Haymitch passed out on the ground. We look at eachother, worried, because we're not sure if he's passed out from smoke inhalation or from being drunk, as he always is.

"What is going on? What happened Haymitch?" We scream as we shake him awake. He looks at us like we're completely nuts, and then he looks at his burning house, and then screams. Apparently he passed out from being drunk, because he starts screaming like a banshee and running around in circles, freaking out because all of his liquor is burning.

"It's just like Haymitch. His house is on fire, and he's running around like an idiot because of his liquor. Damn. I guess we have to find a way to put out this fire before it spreads to our..." I stutter. The fire apparently has been going for awhile, because its spread to our house.

"Oh my god, Peeta! Our house! It's on fire! What do we do? What do we do? Oh my god!" I scream, freaking out. Everyone starts pouring their water on Haymitch's house, extinguishing the fire in 10 minutes. Then, it's to the fire at our house. Our house, with all of Peeta's wonderful paintings, and everything we own, just burning. Burning into a million little pieces of ash. The people have their buckets of water, but it doesn't seem like enough to put the fire out.

People are literally running everywhere trying to find water to put out the fire. Peeta just squeezes my hand, to shocked for words, and also knowing no words right now could calm my mind down. We're loosing everything we have. My bows and arrows, all the weapons, our food, everything. No amount of words can express my feelings of anguish. Self pity. Every unhappy emotion possible washes over me. I didn't know one person could feel like this. This is horrible. The feeling of self pity that overwhelmes me. My legs start to shake, and I fall to the ground, tears streaming down my face, and I'm not trying to hide it. It's no use. It's obvious that I'm hurting inside.

"Katniss... I'm so sorry," I hear someone whisper into my ear. I don't even know who it was. All I know is that it was a female voice.

All of a sudden, everything goes black, and I can see nothing and hear nothing. I feel empty inside, and there's just nothingness everywhere I turn. Then, out of nowhere, Peeta appears in the black about 20 feet infront of me. I try to get up and run to him, but I'm stuck. I can't move an inch. I can only wait, wait until he comes and saves me. Saves me from this emptiness and unhappiness I feel. I try to thrash around and free myself, but everytime I move, I only get more and more stuck. Stuck in this pit of disgusting black slime stuff that is the emptiness of my life right now. Peeta's getting closer, but very slowly. To slowly for my liking. I scream his name, but that doesn't make him walk to me any faster.

"PEETA! PEETA! Please, Peeta, you have to help me. Save me... Get me out of here... Please," I beg as he nears me.

Once he gets close enough to reach out and grab me, he just stands there, unmoving, and as solid as a rock, with his eyes trained on me, his pupils fully dialated, as if he was trying to take in what he was seeing. The only thing he was seeing was me enclosed in a freaking puddle of thick black slime! He sits down next to me, and he reaches out to grab my hand, and as soon as he grabs me, I come to, and we're in our room, in our house, only, everything is backwards. I sit up, and take in my surroundings, and it hits me. This isn't our house. It's another house in the Victor's Village. Our house really did burn down. The million pieces of ash floating around me, the burning inferno of both Haymitch's and our house, everything. It was all real, it wasn't a dream.

Peeta's sitting next to me, holding my hands, letting me soak everything in. The silence is overwhelming though. Horrible. It's like the apparent dream I had before, when Peeta wouldn't talk to me, only keep walking with the same slow pace, only focused on me, apparently not hearing me screaming his name and begging him to help me.

"How long was I out?" I whisper to Peeta.

"You were out for 3 days. I've been by your side the whole time, just hoping you would wake up. You were thrashing all around and screaming about screaming to me, asking me to help you, to save you. I just sat here, holding you, and praying that you would come back to me. That you would stop screaming, because everytime you did, I felt so bad, because I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do. You were in a different place. Somewhere I couldn't penatrate to actually save you. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I'm glad you have come back to me. I love you so much," Peeta says. I can see tears welling up inside his eyes, and he let's them spill over, not caring.

Seeing Peeta like this... It makes me so emotional. He only crys when he's seriously upset about something. seeing him cry makes me cry as well. So we both just sit there, holding eachother tightly, crying. It's like we're back in the arena, when I first found Peeta after Cato had cut him. All the emotions welling over inside both of us.

"I love you to, Peeta. I can't even tell you what it was like... In my... I guess you could call it a dream. It was absolutely horrible. Everything was black, and I was stuck in this thick, black slime, and everytime I tried to move, it just engulfed me more and more. Then, you appeared, but you were walking so slow, and when I screamed for you, you wouldn't walk any faster, which just pissed me off. When you got within arms length of me, you just stopped moving and stared at me. Then you sat down, and grabbed me, and then thats when I woke up. It was horrible Peeta! Absolutely horrible. I can't even explain what I felt. Just horrible. That's the only way I can explain it," as I try to explain this to Peeta, the emotions bottle up inside me, and I start bawling again.

"Shh. I know. I know," he whispers in my ear, stroking the side of my face, trying to calm me down.

"All I know right now is that nothing seems to be going right for us right now. I don't know how long I can keep up with this charade, Peeta. It just keeps getting harder and harder every day. It's like some new horrible thing happens every day to us. I just don't think I can put up with this shit anymore. It's just getting so hard to function like a normal human does," I confess to himm, the tears still streaming from my eyes, my voice shaking from the sobs coming out of my throat.

"I know exactly how you feel. It's the same shit everyday. Day in, and day out. It's just a new situation everyday. It just keeps getting crazier and crazier, and I feel bad for you, and myself. I actually think this is worse than when we were in the games. Life is crazy, and sometimes it sucks. Obviously its sucking right now, but we have eachother, and that's all that counts. Love. Love keeps everything alive and going," he says, his voice full of emotion, almost overwhelming. Just the amount of passion in his voice is enough to make anyone feel his pain.

"I love you, so much. I really don't know what I would do without you," I whisper as I pass out again.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a new morning, I come to, and I find Peeta stroking my face, softly singing into my ear. It has a nice tune to it, so I just lay there, across Peeta, and listen to him sing to me, softly and sweetly. He's coming up with random sentences that make no sense with each other, but he's honestly trying, so that's all that counts.

He feels me shifting my weight, and he looks down at me, beaming. He must be very excited that I'm awake again. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen him so happy.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, a little to overenthusiastic, but there's concern in his voice.

"I feel alright I guess. What exactly happened after the fire, like after I passed out the first time? I'm curious, because this house looks almost exactly like ours, but it's completely backwards. What happened?" I ask, truly wondering how I got here, and what had happened.

"It's a long story, but I think we have time, and then I'll go show you the rest of the house," Peeta says.

"I can handle a long story," I say with true enthusiasm.

"Well, after you passed out, we moved you to your mom's who treated you for smoke inhalation and a few minor burns from the ashes that were falling everywhere..." Peeta said, with a shiver. It looked as he was reliving the night.

"Then, we had everyone go to the lake you had found, and we had them fill up as many buckets of water as possible to put the fire out. Even then, it took three more trips to get it completely out. We honestly didn't think there was anything left, so we all left, Haymitch and I obviously came and checked on you, and everyone else went home to re-cooperate because of how hard they had worked to get the fires out. Haymitch's house was salvageable, but there was nothing, well what we thought was nothing, left of our house, just a huge pile of hot ashes. We decided before we all left that we would meet back in a few hours to look through the rubble and see if there actually was anything left. A few hours passed, and they were uneventful, you hadn't woken up yet, so Haymitch and I decided we would see if anyone had come to look through what was left of the house. Honestly, almost everyone in District 12 had showed up to help sort through the ashes and debris. We started, and it took awhile, but we actually did find something. Our favorite painting of the sunset, with all the different shades of oranges, pinks, purples, and yellows. It was a little burnt around the edges, but it looked kinda cool, like it has a vintage feel to it now. I like it," Peeta says with a smile.

"Okay..." He continues. "...but we kept looking after all the hype of finding the painting had died down. We sorted through for about another hour, and it was almost dark out, so we were just getting ready to call it, because we hadn't found anything else, and then we found something of yours."

"What was it? What was it?" I practically screamed at him, excited he actually found something of mine. The way he said it made it seem like what they found was very important to me. This made me even more excited, but what could it be? The only thing important to me was my Dad's hunting jacket, and I knew I had that on, so what was it that Peeta and the others had found?

"We found your mockingjay pin." Peeta said with a brilliant smile on his face, looking down at me.

"All shiny at the bottom of the ashes in the corner of what used to be our bedroom. At first, no one knew what it was, but all at once, there was a huge gasp, and we all recognized it. The face of the rebellion, still shining bright, even after all that's happened to her. We were all amazed it didn't melt in the flames. So, we grabbed it, and we left because it was getting to dark to do anything outside. Haymitch and I went back to check on you, and you were still out, but, we decided that we would go to Haymitch's house because your mom had other people to treat, so we dragged a cart over to her house, and we loaded you on it, and we brought you to his slightly burnt house." He said, with a slight laugh.

"Surprisingly enough, Haymitch's house was clean and just a little smoke damaged but liveable. He had sobered up, and he had me help put you into his bed. Yes, he offered us his bed. I was amazed. He made sure we were comfy, and he went to the guest room and went to bed after his eventful day. I was hoping you would wake up, but you didn't so I snuggled up to you, and fell asleep immediately, because as I said, we obviously had an eventful day. I slept horrible. having nightmares about loosing you. They were so vivid, and it was unbearable, and I woke up sweating and screaming. You still weren't awake, and I was getting frustrated, so I went for a walk in the moonlight. When I came back, you were still asleep." He stops and smiles at me, and I smile back.

"I fell back asleep again..." he continued, "...and when I woke up, it was daytime out, so I decided I would find us somewhere to live that would be decent. I woke Haymitch up, and to my surprise, he was sober, and he told me he was going to stay sober because the fire had burnt up most of his white liquor. I told him my plan, and we walked out the door and began our search for the closest match to our old house in the Victor's Village. We walked around for literally 3 hours, because we couldn't seem to find the right one. Either the houses were way to big, and we wouldn't be able to make it seem close to what we had, or they were way to small and would feel like you were back in the Seam, and we definitely didn't want that. Finally, the last house in the village, and it was the perfect size. We were to tired from walking around for so long, so we decided that we would wait until the next day to fix it up and make it like home again. So we went home, ate some lunch and sat and talked for the rest of the day. " Peeta took a breath.

"We talked about everything. I can't even tell you the half of it. It was a very intense conversation at times, but it was mostly lighthearted and funny. I actually enjoy talking to Haymitch when he isn't drunk. He's actually a pretty cool guy. We made dinner together, and we sat and ate, and he even pulled out a little bit of liquor, but not enough for either of us to get drunk, and we just enjoyed ourselves. After our dinner, we said goodbye to each other, and I went to Haymitch's room, and he went to the guest bedroom to get ready for bed. I found you still passed out on the bed, but I slept surprisingly sound because I knew I had found a house for us to live in, and I was completely happy with myself, not that I was happy that you still weren't awake. It was more like I was proud of myself.

"So the next day, we went to check out the house. The decor wasn't the same, so we went to the village, and we got people to help us find the wallpaper and find furniture almost the same as what we had. It was almost impossible to find our bed and dressers, but we eventually found things that looked close enough that it wouldn't be that obvious. We got everyone possible to come help, and we put wallpaper and paint on the walls, and we moved the furniture in. We brought in some similar accent pieces like the one we used in the old house, and once we were done, it actually felt like home because it was so similar. Haymitch and I moved you to the house in a small wheelbarrow, and we put you into "our" room, and you seemed peaceful enough, so I went and made some last minute fixes to the accent pieces to make sure everything was perfect for when you woke up. After I fixed the few last minute things, I came up here, and I started singing to you, trying to wake you up, but not startle you, and not to long ago, I felt you shift and I knew you were awake, and that's where we are now."

I just sat there, in awe, because of all that Peeta had just told me. I had to let it sink in that Peeta loves me so much that he would go through so much trouble just to make me happy. It absolutely amazes me, because honestly, I loose everyone that ever loves me like he does. We sit here, for awhile, holding each others gazes, and smiling at each other, loving every moment of it.

"So... You have my mockingjay pin and one of your paintings? That's exciting! At least you could find something that wasn't all burnt up. So, what do we do now?"

Do we just go back to our normal lives, act like nothing ever happened? I honestly have no idea what we can do that won't involve us getting each other killed somehow. With our luck lately, even walking out the damn door could get us killed. I just hope our bad luck is over with, I don't know how much more I can take of this. It's one thing right after another, and it's crazy.

"I can't tell you how much what you've done for me means. I can't believe anyone would even go to that extent for me. I mean, I'm nothing special, I would obviously do the same thing for you, but still. It means so much. I honestly owe you so much right now. I even owe Haymitch a ton, which is scary, because who knows what he's going to want once he gets enough liquor and starts getting drunk constantly again." I say, in a rushed tone, then I look up at him, and see nothing but love in his eyes, and I gave him a weak smile.

"All I know is that I love you, and I know you love me," I tell Peeta, tears starting to well up in my eyes because of how I feel right now. I'm not sure if they're tears of joy, but I'm pretty sure they are because I'm smiling, and I feel all warm inside.

Peeta just sits there, smiling at me, and he leans close to me, and he whispers, "I love you so much Katniss," into my ear so quietly, that I can barely hear it.

The next thing I know, he's softly kissing me, his lips moist and welcoming. I know he was waiting to kiss me, because he's being so gentle, yet purposeful, that I can just tell. Life seems absolutely perfect again, and I'm happy to be here with Peeta and our new home, ready to start our lives, yet again.


End file.
